Why legal challenges to Indiana redistricting would be tricky
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Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios
While maps have been floating around online, nothing official has been presented or filed by state lawmakers, but that hasn't stopped those opposed to the concept of partisan redistricting from pledging to fight any new map in court.
Why it matters: Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions would make any legal challenges to this current spate of mid-cycle redistricting tricky.
The big picture: The Supreme Court ignited the new wave of gerrymandering with a 2019 opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts that held that partisan gerrymandering claims "present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts."
- Roberts added that "the fact that such gerrymandering is 'incompatible with democratic principles,' ... does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary."
State of play: Georgetown University Law Center professor Steve Vladeck said the Supreme Court's decision "left it as open-season for whatever the legislature can get away with" in states where lawmakers control the maps.
- Plus: In 2024, the Supreme Court made it even more difficult to challenge congressional maps when it upheld a South Carolina district map by arguing that, while racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional, you can't infer "bad faith based on the racial effects of a political gerrymander in a jurisdiction in which race and partisan preference are very closely correlated."
Zoom in: The question of racial versus political gerrymandering will be at issue in trying to divide Indiana's 7th District, covering much of Indianapolis.
- "It's a community of interest," Indiana University civics professor Paul Helmke said of Indianapolis, noting that courts generally like congressional maps to keep such cities and towns intact when possible.
- "To intentionally carve it up would look like a pretty obvious racial gerrymander," he said.
- But because racial and party lines often coincide, some courts could accept the political gerrymandering argument.
What they're saying: Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said on X that his office is "fully prepared to defend any new map that the legislature draws and enacts."
- "Hoosiers have consistently delivered supermajorities to Republicans in both the Indiana House and Senate because they want conservative policies and leadership," Rokita said. "The General Assembly is well within its legal authority under the U.S. and Indiana Constitutions and settled Supreme Court precedent to draw new congressional maps mid-decade."
The other side: "We are closely monitoring the process, and we are researching and considering the possibility of litigation," Ken Falk, the legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, told Axios in an email.
- "But we hope that will not be necessary as we hope that the General Assembly will see the wisdom of not disturbing the maps it has only recently drawn up."